Dealer Deal or Selling Scam?

alpower

Hi there,
I had a quick search but didn't come up with anything, so thought I would pick the brains of all you clever money savers out there.

I own a low milage VW Polo (2002 and 38K) and recently got a letter from my local VW dealership saying could I give them a call and that "this is NOT a circular".

I phoned up, and was told by one of their salemen that their main parent dealership was having a hard time getting in used Polos, and had instructed them to contact a certain number of their existing Polo owning customers and see if they would part-ex their used ones for new.

Apparently to sweeten the deal, they were instructed to sell me a new car at the dealer cost price (apparently 5% off their list) and also to give me a favourable rate of part exchange (approx £750-1500 above the glass's guide list price for my car).

I was extremely sceptical to say the least! My question to you is a) has anyone heard of this and also is it (as I suspect) another in a long line of car dealership clever sales techniques and b) is it not the good deal it seems.

I would have thought that if they wanted the cars so badly, they would have offered to just buy the used car straight out, rather than part-ex, but didnt think of that until I had hung up!!

Your thoughts are appreciated!!

Thanks,
Al

Crabman

Well they'd be getting rid of a new car and probably still making a profit on it too - have a read of the New Car Buying and Financing Cost Cutting Plan article and see whether their 'deal' really is a great offer, using comparison against car supermarkets and the online price bots too.

Personally I'd be driving round the dealership to find out exactly how many used Polo's they actually have on the forecourt and see if their story checks out!

plane_boy2000

Smart did the same thing with me - told me they wanted to get some more used roadsters back in. Think its just a sales ploy to get you in.

Their cost price is far lower than list less 5% to. Drive the deal look like they are offering about 9.5% discount against list so that also make me think its just to boost sales of new cars. Solw time of year with people being on holiday etc.

mpython

If my memory serves me correctly, dealers will discount up to around 17% off list price to secure a deal, so 5% is not so generous even with £750 above glass price list as an add on(Don't glass' have 3 bands of prices of which dealer trade in is the lowest).Its sounds to me just a clever sales call.....got you thinking about getting a new care hasn't it?

dnc1781

See:
http://www.broadspeed.com/cgi-bin/bsc/config.pl?request=getvers&ref=gg&rs=Broadspeed.com&make=Volkswagen&model=Polo
http://www.autoebid.com/carSearch.asp?f=&finType=&category=0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8&make=VOLKSWAGEN&range=POLO&model=POLO%20HATCHBACK&financeMethod=&monthlyPrice=&maxPrice=
http://nvs.autotrader.co.uk/www/cars_search?state=block&hassearched=Y&modelexact=1&creator=&pagesize=20&prereg=Y&photo=1&make=VOLKSWAGEN&model=POLO&min_pr=&max_pr=&search.x=22&search.y=7

xycom1

They are just after good second hand stock and at the same time make cash on selling some new cars.

As plane_boy says, dealer's margin is a lot more than 5%. :laugh: Push them for 25% and then go away and think about it...!